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by lastoneleft



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Another fic in which Eren's parents deserve better, Eren's had a rough life and Jean helps piece him back together, I wrote this specifically so I could write one line near the end, M/M, Mikasa and Armin too before he comes along, erejean - Freeform, jeaneren - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastoneleft/pseuds/lastoneleft
Summary: After years of healing from the loss of his parents, Jean comes into Eren's life and eventually brings him a sense of peace.





	Home

Eren loses his parents and his innocence in the fire. His father carries him and Mikasa out before the fire trucks arrive and runs back in for his mother. The firefighters get there in time to grab Eren before he can run in after them. They find Grisha and Carla huddled up near the cellar door.

Eren spends his childhood and most of his teen years misplacing anger with well placed punches. At least he tells himself they're well placed. He doesn't learn how to aim them properly until he's 13 and takes a beating from a girl named Annie. She teaches him afterwards as an apology. She is his first and last girlfriend.

Eren calms some the year before Mikasa’s uncle finds them. They're nearly 17, but Levi adopts them anyway. 

He doesn't raise his fists for almost two years, until some toolbag named Jean Kirstein hits on Mikasa at a party. Moments after she rejects him, Jean trips and ‘accidentally’ grabs one of her boobs. Eren is on him before he can apologize, before Mikasa can swing at him herself. They beat the living hell out of each other before Mikasa pulls Eren off of Jean to have a go at him herself for making him bleed. Armin has to throw himself in front of her and explain that he knows Jean and he really isn't a bad guy, insists that if Jean says it was an accident, it was an accident. Eren is unconvinced, but he walks away nonetheless.

Eren hates Jean another two weeks before they run into each other again. After another scrap, some yelled explanations during, and a shared cigarette, they end up respecting each other.

Eren is dating him three months later.

* * *

 

Jean never says it out loud, but he knows Eren is still a little broken. Eren loves his sister, his best friend, his guardian. Eren loves Jean, even if he only says it when they're cuddling so he can press his pink face into the crook of Jean’s neck. The anger in Eren is quelled, but he still aches so deep it rattles in his bones, makes his blood run cold when he wakes up from a nightmare. Jean can see it when they drive past the graveyard. He sees it when Jean’s mother kisses his cheek. Sees it when his father smiles and tells Jean he’s proud of him.

Jean doesn't know what to do, knows Eren would tell him there’s nothing  _ to _ do if he asked. So Jean just stays, holds Eren tight when he’s silently threatening to fall apart at the seams, and hopes that the part of his soul Eren owns is enough to fill the cracks.

* * *

Eren had one serious boyfriend before Jean. He eventually saw that Eren has too much baggage, and bailed two days after their two year anniversary. Mikasa beat him senseless and Eren swore off love.

Three years later, Jean Kirstein came barreling into his life and threw a wrench in that plan. Eren was scared at first. Still is sometimes, if he’s being honest with himself.

But then Jean looked at Eren the way his mother used to look at his father and Eren’s chest swelled until it felt ready to burst, until the giddy feeling in his stomach shot tingles right down to his toes. Eren clung to Jean that night, and every night since.

It takes a while to place what that look means. Almost a year. When Eren does, it hits him like a ton of bricks, knocks the wind from his lungs. It's something his mom would speak of occasionally, telling Eren it's something you get from your family, and if you're lucky, someone who can be the equivalent.

Unconditional love.

Mikasa and Armin have been pouring it into him all their lives, keeping Eren together when they were suffering too. They’ve been helping put him back together for over a decade. And now, here's Jean, picking up the last of the pieces in hopes of making him whole again. Eren’s decided he won't succeed. He can't. Some of those pieces belong to Jean, and Eren wants him to keep them. As long as Jean has them, as long as he stays, Eren can still be whole, right?

* * *

 

Eren has been living with Jean for three years when Armin comes to visit them in Sina. Jean has fallen asleep on the couch, and Eren takes a break from trying to throw chunks of Cheetos in his open, snoring mouth to ask Armin to repeat himself.

“Home,” Armin repeats. “Do you miss it?”

Eren knows he doesn't mean Levi’s house back in Trost. As much as he loves Levi, as much as he appreciates everything he did for him and Mikasa, Eren barely felt settled in his house before he moved out for college.

Armin sure as hell doesn't mean the foster homes he and Mikasa were in and out of. Armin means back in Shiganshina, where a new family lives in the house that is built over the ashes of Eren’s childhood home.

Eren wonders briefly if that's the last place he truly considered home. Jean’s foot twitches in his lap, nearly hits him in the junk before he makes another sound to rival the freight train rolling by their apartment.

The corner of Eren’s mouth turns up. No.

Home is curled up against Jean at night, nuzzling in so close he whines about Eren’s hair tickling his nose. Home is Jean’s never ending snark when Eren invades his space and laughs at him when Jean flicks him in the forehead to get him to piss off for 3 consecutive seconds. It's long nights in Jean’s lap, bodies moving together and sharing the warm air between them. Home can be anywhere, as long as that big dork is standing at Eren’s side; or hogging the bed until Eren has to latch onto him like a damn koala to avoid falling off, or dragging Eren to a fucking cooking class at 7am so he’ll stop burning dinner when all Eren wants to do is sleep. It's anywhere. It's everywhere. It’s just… Jean.

Eren breaks off another piece of Cheeto, lobs it at Jean's face and sighs when it bounces off his chin. He thinks about the ring in the black, velvet box hidden behind their cleaning supplies. “I am home, Ar.”

Armin doesn't ask. Doesn't need to. Just nods and wonders briefly if Mikasa wants to be Eren’s best man or walk him down the aisle.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think <3


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